I realise this isn’t going to happen as fast as I’d have liked. The workshop has been inundated with first year projects and the technicians stretched beyond capacity. I have never lathed before (apart from during the mini-me project which was a production line affair) so working out how to do it has been placed into the hands of the technicians. Managed to catch hold of Melvyn today but it seems doing the front and back of a piece of material isn’t as easy as I first thought. It will require turning on one side, and then flipping over, recentre-ing the material, and then turning the other. We’ve decided how we are going to mount the material (‘chemiwood’, 600 grade) onto the lathe’s faceplate and currently 2 pieces of 14mm, or 16mm (didn’t measure) plywood are being glued together to make a base for the lathe material to screw to. I don’t quite know exactly what this is for yet, but I will find out come Monday. I have a slight feeling that my technician is being overly precautions, but then although time is of the essence, I’d rather learn today without getting my arm ripped off and be able to streamline the process a little in the future.
In other news, our new client project involves us designing a product to uphold the tradition of dining as we know it in the smaller-scale setting of the modern home. I have been decoding the John Lewis brand as part of our client project. Tomorrow I will head to the store and take some pictures of the look and feel, the product before making my plan for observing dining habits.